alexandriacardinals

OK, I’m not a “fair” guy.  It’s always too hot, too crowded, too loud, and too dusty for my extreme sensibilities.  Yet every year, I somehow manage to allow the supervisor to drag me along to look at bunnies and quilts and to wolf down a few krumkakes and a Missus Wicken lemonade.  This year I couldn’t complain about the weather.

So, the Douglas County Fair – famed in song and story.  I most remember riding the Tilt-A-Whirl as a kid with my Uncle Dick.  We would complete a ride, get off, buy another ticket, and get right back on again.  Well, you had to be there.  I’ll always remember sister Gretch’s fondest memory of the fair when we were kids – a kid had barfed cotton candy all over his shirt and continued to wander the fairgrounds being forever in our view.  On that day – and to this day – we all refer to him fondly as “Pink Boy.”

[The midway – with teeming masses of humanity.]

This year we went to see Cassie & the Bobs.  We had never seen them perform, and it was beginning to be an assault on our reputations as local bon vivants!  Always good to see, and hear, Annie and Bruce and Terry and, for the first time in a long time, Fiddlin’ Sami.  I had a nice visit with Sami – she has had issues with her bowing arm for quite a while now.  The pain caused her to come home from the University of Colorado because she could no longer play.  She has finally been diagnosed as having rheumatoid arthritis in that arm – so here’s hoping it can be “treated” well enough for her to reclaim her college scholarship.

[Someone forgot to shut the back door?]

[Our guy Terry is the “Bob” in the middle.]

[“Bob” and Cassie, channeling Patsy Cline.]

[“Bobs” Bruce, Sami, and Annie.]

[Cowboy hat]

[We bid adieu to the fair – with a parting shot, for the Indiana and Virginia sides of the family who are quite fond of them, of the Cheese Curds sign.]

The next day it was off to the winery for the Velines.  The supervisor and I enjoyed our first Italian panini there.  And with our bottle of Trinity, enjoyed Matt and Julie.

[We had to “ford” through the Corvettes to get to the stage.]

[Julie and Matt were joined by their 3-year old son Will, a left-handed bass player.  🙂 ]

[And Will had several girl cousins there.]

[Super Fan Vivian (middle) was there with her girlfriends from Minneapolis.  When the girls come to town, Super Fan Bob leaves – this year to Glencoe so he could check out Bump’s Restaurant, home of the famous Bump Burger!  😉 ]

[Will is already planning his solo career.]

Unfortunately as we were readying to leave the winery, we were joined by the likes of Rock, Gary, and Dangerous Dan.  We advised we needed a slight break in the action before heading to Bug-A-Boo Bay for Uncle Willie’s Gutbucket Blues Band – the supervisor requested we head home for a quick nap.  Dangerous Dan misunderstood and went directly to Bug-A-Boo – when we got there an hour later, he scolded us for being late!

Cloud:  On the way from home to Bug-A-Boo, I shot the same cloud over a ‘bean field, Lake Carlos, and Lake L’Homme Dieu.  Yes, I’m easily entertained.

[I’ve looked at clouds from three sides now . . .]

[When we arrived at Bug-A-Boo Bay, Bruce (yes, the same Bruce who was playing with Cassie & the Bobs the previous night) was entertaining his fan club by the shores of beautiful Lake L’Homme Dieu.]

[Al was fine tuning his mandolin.]

[And away they went – Uncle Willie’s Gutbucket Blues Band.  And, as always, no matter what my angle, Annie is hidden behind someone!]

Some videos:  Uncle Willie’s Gutbucket Blues Band’s “Deep Ellum Blues”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppd0C3_5wjM

Uncle Willie’s Gutbucket Blues Band’s “Galway Girl”:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jzd4UoGooo

[It was an absolutely perfect evening!  Chamber of Commerces would pay mucho dinaros for such evenings.  70 degrees, dry, no wind, no bugs – we could have sat out all night listening to the boys, and girl, play!  🙂 ]

Editor’s note:  I subsequently learned that some fraudulent survey company determined Minnesota to be one of the 10 worst states to retire to (as they dangled their participle).  Keep it up, fraudulent company – keeps out the riff-raff!

[Anybody sitting there that night – with the lake in the background – would just say, “Wow!”]

And blog contributor, Sue Elliot, sent the latest Patchouli video.  Thanks, Sue – “Woodlands” is one of my favorites.

Patchouli’s “Woodlands”:  http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=vIaArcC9wYo&feature=em-share_video_user

I think we’re caught up for now.  Uffda.  But fall sports are just around the corner.  Soon the blog will be featuring Cardinal athletes instead of near and distant relatives.  I sent out a notice of the fall sports schedules and was immediately set upon by the villagers in Young Frankenstein for not including those for tiddly-winks, Parcheesi, and adult somersaulting.  But I kid.  Yes, all the other fall sports are wonderful, too.  It’s just that the Super Fans have to pick and choose – and we can change on the fly – and football and volleyball have been the fall sports of choice in recent years.  It’s bad enough that almost all volleyball games are on Thursday nights – thus totally disrupting “date night!”

Have you noticed that ever since we returned home from camp there has been no need for air conditioning?  We have enjoyed a beautiful October in August – sleeping with windows wide open under all manner of blankees.  Even the trees are confused!  I imagine we’ll be golfing year ’round again this winter?  But I digress . . .

There are folks who live on the other side of beautiful Lake Darling from us.  That should come as no surprise since there are few undeveloped lots on the lake.  And every year, four folks from Camp Ballantine invite us and a couple from Lake L’Homme Dieu over for a nosh from the Big Green Egg.  These six are all snowbirders, so the invite generally coincides with the end of summer – the hosts are leaving early this year because August has been too cold!  We have no idea how we got on this list – it maybe a Lake Wobegon thing, the supervisor’s strong and I’m good looking?  😉 But we get to see what the world looks like from the other side, i.e., sunsets.  It looked dicey this year as it rained most of the evening – but just at the right time . . .

[Arrowwood waterpark building on the left.]

[And to the subject at hand, without further adieu – the Big Green Egg!  Mmmmmm!]

[And inside folks are enjoying the contents of the Big Green Egg.  They will not be shown here as they are all in the protected age group.]

And last week son-in-law Danny made a return visit to Minnesota.  He was going to the Canadian border to learn how to build a Rocket stove for their future retirement home.  This is his story . . .

I attended a Rocketstove construction workshop up north of Ely about 5 miles from the Canadian Border last Saturday.  We dry fitted the fire brick into a “stove core” then fired it up and continued to build out the mock-up.  There were about 8 like-minded people in attendance along with some children.  Our instructors (Ernie & Erica) have built over 700 stoves thus far, they are traveling cross country putting on workshops to educate the masses.  

This opportunity allowed me to put the past couple years of research into “hands on experience” and was an amazing day of hard work and valuable lessons.

[And now we all know a “green” way to cook and space heat!  🙂 ]

A few of the Northern Minnesota sites along my ride back to Alida from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area which is North of Ely.  I was able to take all of these photos without exiting the vehicle.

[You know all these – and to know ’em is to love ’em!]

Back at the “harn,” Danny stirred up a hornets’ nest bush whacking and got stung several times in several places.  It was a well-coordinated attack.  On the plus side, the inside of the “harn” is really shaping up!  🙂

See you at the fair?

We lost a true, and original, Super Fan this week.  Dave died on the 15th after a several year battle with Parkinson’s.  He was 76.  He continued to golf in the Tuesday and Thursday senior men’s golf leagues for as long as he could through last year.  He was The Hoymster, a/k/a, The Brooten Flash.

This photo is from three years ago – apparently a photograph was necessary because of the size of the fleecing they had inflicted upon their fellow competitors!  Dave was not only a golfer, he was also a reverend and in that capacity served in the military as a colonel chaplain.  He served in the first gulf war in 1991.  It was probably because of his military background that he was a jogger – an affliction I will never understand.  He jogged so many miles in his lifetime he was a member of that national or international organization that recognizes those who run a gazzilion miles.  Later he challenged himself by joining our Fat Boys Walking Club at the mall, though he never fit our profile.

With Reverend Rollie (making sure He was on our side?) at a girls basketball game in February 2011.  That’s his wife Jeanne to his right.  We always figured his interest in basketball sprang from being Bo Ryan’s neighbor in Platteville, Wisconsin, before Bo went on to national fame as coach of the Badgers.  But Dave covered all the sports (though Jeanne thought hockey too cold for spectating), and thus was a Super Fan (standing right, May 2009 photo):

And this is Jeanne and Dave at the Tuesday League’s Steak Fry and Putting Contest, August 2010.  We’ll miss him.

R.I.P., David

p.s.  I belatedly found one more picture of Dave.

With the Super Fans at a girls’ hockey game, December 6, 2010.

And wouldn’t you have loved to have been a fly on the wall?

[. . . or in a bottle?  Photo actually taken by me almost 40 years ago to the day.  I suspect the fly is no longer among the living, but it seems likely there are surviving relatives.]

As you know, this blog on several occasions has noted that the Class of ’65 turns (-ed) 65 this year.  And as exciting as that may be for us – probably not so much for the rest of you.  For those of us who showed up, it was mainly a celebration that we could still show up.

[Bug-A-Boo Bay was the venue.  We extracted a group of birthday partiers of a similar age from the multi-seat table and began the task of chronicling the event.  The “Trailboss,” a/k/a, Stan Rolfsrud, who was also some sort of class official and who also drove all the way from a southern metro-area suburb just for this event, explained to Nancy Steen Eckdahl, Class of ’67, how to shoot a group photo.]

[And with adjustments to that dial, we all look 30 years younger!]

[Class photo – these were allegedly the best 2 out of 4.]

[For those keeping score at home, as best as I can recall.  Standing (l-r):  Stan Rolfsrud, John Herdan, Bev Roers Korkowski, Charley Olson, Tom Obert, Gary Eckdahl, Betty Larson Butcher; sitting (l-r):  Marlene Zimmel Bettin, Sue Graves Seltz, Pat Collins Owens, Bob Watson, Sara Smith Sevey, Mary Anne Hibbard Estenson, Kathy Sherry Skadsberg, and Billie Jo Jones.]

[And I’ll never forget the day . . .]

[You did what? . . .]

[And then in 1973 . . .]

[No, it was the spring of ’74 . . .]

[Must have been something serious?]

[Yeah, we’re on camera again . . .]

[And then I caught a fish this big . . . ]

[Pat and Bobby share a moment . . .]

[Don’t look now, but there’s some old guy behind us taking pictures . . .]

[But who remembers dates anymore? . . .]

[The Legend of Billie Jo . . .]

[Why yes, we do golf! . . .]

[And I remember graduation day like it was only 47 years ago . . .]

[You Heighters were awesome! . . .]

[Thank goodness the photographer is winding down for his afternoon nap . . .]

[It’s about time!]

See y’all again in a couple years.

In other news of the week – gardens.  The morning of the reunion I had the opportunity to visit some of our local botanical splendors, which seem to be blog favorites.  Up first, Steph Olson’s gardens at the Alexandria Golf Club.  Steph not only is a great gardener for the club, she also has the good taste to be a major fan of Funky Gumbo Trio!  🙂

And now to the reconstruction of Hole No. 7:

[A well-known local car dealer blasts off on the 100-yard temporary No. 8.]

[Crazy Dave ponders his navel.  He previously contemplated his navel, but that was too many syllables.]

. . . but not least, the supervisor’s front door garden:

And the following morning (the 15th), Lisa Grimes was working with the Cardinal stars of the future (stressing the telephoto capabilities of the snapshot camera to the max):

And No. 7:

We learned that morning we had lost a Super Fan . . .